Conversations about the End of Time

Four intellectuals and scientists--Stephen Jay Gould, Umberto Eco, Jean-Claude CarriFre, and Jean Delumeau--share their reflections on millennial conciousness, probing the origins of apocalyptic fascination, prehistoric cataclysms like the extinction of the dinosaurs, and religious views on the subject.

Just a bit late for the party in Times Square--though rather early for the Apocalypse--comes this friendly book, first published in France (and in French) in 1998. Its four eminent thinkers from the U.S., Italy and France discuss--in chatty Q&A format--history, chronology, religion, paleontology, ecodisaster, and other subjects linked to Y2K. Paleontologist Gould (Questioning the Millennium, etc.) delves into the history of the calendar and of human error, and explains the different "time-scales" appropriate to microbes, mice and minerals: he declares affably that "the way reality proves predictions false is a constant pattern in human history." French Catholic historian Delumeau has penned treatises on fear, reassurance, and Paradise in medieval and Renaissance Europe: here he discusses "the meaning of suffering," Christian ethics, Old Testament prophets, millenarian monks' vision of Y1K and Renaissance eschatologies. Playwright and screenwriter Carri?re skips from Hindu cosmology (discouraging) to local oenology (very encouraging) to literary history. And novelist Eco (The Name of the Rose, etc.) reconsiders religion, mysticism, New Age movements, the Web, the Tower of Babel, and the crowd of "Diabolicals," wannabe prophets who see urgent meanings in every squiggle. Sometimes provocative, sometimes superficial, all four "conversations" take similar turns: the world won't end tomorrow, the authors agree, but it's interesting to explore exactly why we care who thinks it will. Each thinker's conversation takes place not with the other thinkers but the French editors; each man, however, contributes a two-page conclusion responding to the other thinkers' ideas. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Rex Harrison's ego was almost as large as his talent; his performance as Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady remains one of the legendary highlights of the American musical theater, and he won a Best Actor Oscar when he repeated the role in the 1964 film. In the early 1980s, Garland directed Harrison in a revival of My Fair Lady--not a completely happy experience owing to cast problems, forgotten lines, and the suicide of Harrison's fourth wife, Rachel Roberts. This slim book recounts the moments Garland spent with Harrison in his last decade, and it's a sad, funny, often appalling portrait of a lion in winter. Brief vignettes of other theater luminaries and observations about backstage theater life are woven into the narrative. The result is an affectionate, anecdotal memoir, though many readers are unlikely to share the author's warmth toward his difficult subject. Recommended as a supplement to Harrison's two autobiographies, Rex (LJ 5/15/75) and A Damned Serious Business: My Life in Comedy (LJ 12/90).
-Stephen Rees, Levittown Regional Lib., PA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

As New Year's Eve 2000 came and went with appropriate fanfare, but with possibilities of Y2K disaster looming over the celebrations, there could be no doubt of humanity's utter fascination with the doomsayers and prophets predicting the end of time. Where does our fascination come from? How do non-Western cultures (for whom the year 2000 occurred several millennia ago) view time? These and other questions are answered by four scholars and cultural critics: Stephen Jay Gould, best-selling Harvard paleontologist; Umberto Eco, Italian novelist and professor of semiotics; Jean Delumeau, French historian; and Jean-Claude Carriere, playwright and critic. Each scholar is given a chapter. The format of question-and-answer is not too distracting and makes for a relatively comprehensible and quick read. Although there are some slightly awkward translations of idiomatic expressions, the insights that these well-rounded scholars provide are thought-provoking and revelatory. Despite originally being published in French two years ago, this look at popular millennialism and apocalypticism still appeals today. Michael Spinella